Unusual as this guitar looks to us today, in the early 1900s harp guitars were made by many companies, including Gibson, Martin, and the Larson brothers. Harp guitars combine a standard six-string guitar with a harp's sub-bass strings to extend the tonal range of the instrument. Forerunners of this style of guitar date back to lutes in the 1500s.

Orville Gibson, who gave his name to the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Company, was an innovator in both design and construction. With this guitar, he successfully demonstrated that an instrument with an arched top, rather than the traditional flattop, would produce a louder sound. Gibson borrowed the arched- or carved-top concept from the violin; however, the violin's f-shaped sound holes were not adapted to guitar design until the 1920s. The archtop guitar has been popular with both musicians and makers throughout the 20th century.

This is a mid-1800s guitar. Guitars of the 18th century commonly used gut and metal-wound gut strings. A simple solution to 19th-century demands for greater volume was to utilize newly available materials. But the structure of the guitar had to be reinforced to withstand the resulting increase in tension. Christian Frederick Martin was one of the innovators in the transition to steel strings. Around 1850 Martin invented "X-bracing," the use of crossed wooden strips in the guitar's top for structural reinforcement. He also developed other design features, such as a body shape that was smaller above the sound hole than below, and a square peghead. They marked the beginning of a new American flattop guitar design that is little changed today.

This is a medal that was awarded to Clara Barton, after her death in 1912. It commemorates the 1913 bicentennial of her birthplace, Oxford, Massachusetts, amd also reads, "Clara Barton: The World's Greatest Nurse." The medal is in the shape of a Greek cross, similar to the Red Cross emblem.